Shaking up your peace

Thoughts in the Ghosts from A Christmas Carol

Do you have a favorite version of A Christmas Carol?

I grew with the movie from 1984 with George C. Scott. It seems to be one of the most direct from book to movie versions. Disneys animated version had a train tour that came to my area when I was a teen. It was a sad era in my fashion sense, though my friends and I did have a Dickensian style Christmas party in that time as well. (Ah homeschoolers.) Of course there is the Muppets or Mickey Mouses version, which tend to be more introductory.

A movie called The Man Who Invented Christmas explores some of the background of Dickens creating his famous characters. Mr. Dickens and His Carol is a similar idea in book form.

Regardless of the way in which you have heard the story, you know it.

A grouchy, cruel miser is visited by ghosts on Christmas Eve and reforms into a kind man that all admire. A redemption story with gothic Victorian chills and beloved supporting characters.

One of the plot lines in the story is the contrast of false peace and real peace. Jacob Marley is unable to “rest in peace” due to the deficit of kindness when he was alive. Ebenezer Scrooge just wants to go to bed in “peace”. He wants to work in “peace” and “keep Christmas” in his own way which is to leave it alone.

This mistaken view of peace is the one which guides many people. Time alone, a sole focus on work and living, so that all persons who interfere with that goal are considered disrupters of the peace. Yet who actually has peace in this story?